


MCU AU One-shots

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M, One Shot, alternate universe- legal thriller, alternate universe- medieval
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 11,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various prompted one-shot AU's starring MCU folks. Mostly Sif/Loki and Clint/Coulson. Thanks be to Tumblr for ask-box memes.</p><p>This ficlet: Coulson, prosecuting attorney, tries to get Clint, a hired thug for racketeer Loki, to flip on his employer. Prompted by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowen/pseuds/shadowen">shadowen</a> (C/C, legal thriller AU).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. testify (Clint/Coulson)

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : All characters belong to Marvel and various subsidiaries. This isn't for profit, just for fun.
> 
>  
> 
> ****

“Mister Barton,” Phil says, holding his hand out to the prisoner. “Phil Coulson. I’m the Assistant District Attorney.”

“I know what you want, and I ain’t saying a goddamn word, so save it,” Clint says, and Phil frowns and sets his briefcase on the cold metal table between them.

“Your testimony could save lives, Barton,” he says quietly.

“You talk, and then you walk. I don’t want you. I want your employer.”

“Fuck you, and fuck him too,” Clint spits. “What the fuck about my life? And don’t give me that witness protection bullshit. You’re not the feds, you can’t promise me shit. Hell, Loki finds out you picked me up and I’m not even walking out of this place. How well do you really know the people you work with, Coulson? Fuck, how well do you even know yourself?”


	2. code words (Clint/Coulson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Coulson are on a mission; prompted by [bendingwind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind) (C/C, "Hi there, stranger.").

All Clint hears before the bar goes dark is the whisper of Phil’s voice in his ear, a murmured, “Hi there, stranger,” and then the lights go out and Phil’s hand moves from Clint’s back to the extra piece he’s packing inside his suit jacket. The nightvision in the glasses Clint’s wearing kicks in just in time, and he follows Phil quickly and quietly to the back office of the bar where their target is waiting. 

He’s got no clue what the hell is in this safe, he just knows that Fury wants it, but Clint has other things on his mind as he sets to cracking it.

“We’ve gotta get a new code phrase, boss,” Clint says, methodically working away at the safe as best he can while his brain is otherwise occupied with very detailed thoughts of shoving Phil up against the door. “That one’s just too damn sexy.”


	3. knight's tale (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medieval AU: Prince Loki has trouble; Sif has a sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by [shadowen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowen/pseuds/shadowen) (Sif/Loki, Medieval AU).

The walls of Prince Loki’s castle are high and well-guarded, but hardly impenetrable, especially to a master assassin, and he is unsurprised when the knight comes for him in the dead hours of a cold winter evening, dressed in black mail that seems to draw all light to it, not to reflect it, but to capture it and extinguish it, shrouding the wearer in a moving cloak of secrecy. It is a talent he would dearly like to possess himself, but he will not offer a compliment to his killer, and settles instead for calmly leaning against the wall of his bedchamber and asking who has sent the one the villagers call the Black Death to dispatch him.

The knight lowers his sword, and with one swift motion removes his helm, revealing not a man at all, but a woman, and a rather beautiful one at that.

“I come not to kill you, Prince, but to bear you hence, for the man who sent me would have words with you, a task that will be difficult if the Archbishop has your head, for he has learned of your plots against him, and if you value your life as much as your machinations, you will come with me.”


	4. second chance (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU: Seven years after a bad breakup, Sif and Loki start over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head this is set in the [Asgard House universe](http://archiveofourown.org/series/27047), but you don't have to read that for this to make sense.

"Full disclosure," Loki says, opening the door of the little coffeehouse for her. "I had-- we won't call them plans, but I certainly had high hopes for this little reunion."

Sif looks back at him in surprise. "You're telling me about your ulterior motives?"

He grimaces. "New leaf. I believe I mentioned my therapist?"

"You did. Look, why don't we start with coffee," she says slowly, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket so she isn't tempted to reach out for him. "And we'll just-- we'll see where we end up."

He nods, and his answering smile may be tight and restrained, but somehow it is a different expression than the tired, condescending affairs she's accustomed to; it is not warm, not exactly, but there is an absence of coldness to it that surprises her. The difference between this person and the person she left behind seven years ago is striking, and she finds that she is especially grateful when he says, "The usual, then?" so she can nod and slide into a chair near the window, wondering all the while if she seems just as strange and new to him as he does to her.

It turns out that he's kept up more with their college acquaintances than she has, another unusual thing in a long line of strange events from today. He tells her about Jasper and Fandral and the ridiculous holiday cards they send him every year, complete with pictures of themselves in awful jumpers and a pug in a Santa hat on Fandral's lap, and the more he talks, the more she laughs, until finally an hour or more has passed and her coffee cup is empty and her muscles are starting to ache from all her laughter.

"Oh," she says, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "I don't think I've laughed this much in years."

"If I took that from you, I owe you more of an apology than I thought," he says, his face a perfect portrait of serious sincerity that she would dearly love to accept as honest and real and true, but she has known him too well and too long. It would be so easy to fall back into this, but they didn't fight for it last time around and it earned them nothing but wasted time and a pair of broken hearts, an experience she is unwilling to repeat. If this is real, she wants to do battle for it; she wants it to take time.

"I don't know what to make of you," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he says, leaning back with a sigh.

"You've told me about everyone else," she says, latching onto the first change of subject she can think of, "but not about you. You finished law school? Passed the bar?"

"Two bar exams, actually," he tells her. "Never doing that again if I can help it."

She frowns in sympathy. "What do you do, then?"

"Mergers and acquisitions," he says, allowing himself the slightest hint of a smirk. "Essentially, I ruin lives for a living."

She laughs. "I can't imagine you like that at all."

"Not in the least," he says, winking at her. "But I do try to leave my penchant for destruction at the office, most days."

"How's that working out for you?"

"I win more than I lose," he says, spreading his hands on the table, long fingers splayed out on the tile. "I am informed this is all I can expect."

"Same," she says, thinking of the soccer field and the rush of the wind in her ears as she chases her opponents toward the goal, hoping for victory, hoping to win more than she loses.

"Do you miss it? Being a physicist, I mean, not-- not us," he clarifies hastily, but she smiles.

"Every day," she tells him, reaching out before she can stop herself and laying her hand atop his. "And sometimes I miss physics, too."


	5. another castle (Steve & Thor, gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns to play video games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from [allthatihavemet](http://allthatihavemet.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr: Steve and Thor learning to play video games together. This was supposed to be happy, I swear to god, but I fail at that.

Steve isn't one to brag, but he's pretty proud of how easily he's settling into life in this century. Sure, it was a bit of a shock to find out just how much porn there is on the internet, some of which (confusingly) has to do with fondue, and every so often he's a little flummoxed by the occasional gadget-- usually anything to do with anything in the kitchen; he's still not entirely certain that the average person would know that an _electric mandoline_ isn't a louder version of an acoustic instrument instead of a thing that slices vegetables-- but overall, he's pleased to say that most of the time, he's got it covered. 

Video games, though, those he's not quite up to snuff on. He can work the controls just fine, no matter what system they try to throw at him, but he just doesn't see the point, most days.

Clint and Nat like to play this game called Grand Theft Auto, which as far as Steve can tell is about killing people and taking things that don't belong to you, and he's not really okay with that. Seems like those are the kind of people they try to stop, every time they suit up, and he's not about to spend the hours he gets to relax running around on the other side of the good guy/bad guy fence. 

And then one day, Phil brings in this beat-up little grey box and hooks it up to the big television in the lounge and stays there for most of the afternoon. Phil's still on light-duty since the battle with Loki and the Chitauri, and the team's just glad he's not pushing himself harder than he should be-- Fury's exact words the last time he caught Phil trying to do actual work had been mostly unrepeatable-- so nobody minds too much, and some of them even hang out and watch him play for a while. By the time Steve walks in, Phil's switched over from a baseball game to something that involves a little guy riding a bicycle and delivering newspapers, which sounds like it should be really boring, but half an hour later Steve is munching on a bowl of popcorn and drinking a bottle of pop and shouting, "Watch out for that ghost!" every time Phil rolls past the haunted house. If Phil's annoyed at what Tony would probably call his "backseat gaming," he doesn't say, though, just maneuvers his way around all the obstacles with a satisfied smile on his face. 

"I gotta say, Phil, I never understood the appeal of these things until now," Steve says.

"Tell you what," Phil says, frowning thoughtfully. "I was going to take this home with me, but if you want, I could leave it with you for a while." 

"That would be really great, Phil, thank you," Steve says, grinning, and that is how Steve Rogers ended up spending the better part of a year getting acquainted with the whole range of Nintendo games, including the essential practice of blowing into the game cartridges to get them to work, which is exactly what he's doing when Thor walks into the lounge. 

"Good evening, Steven," Thor says. He looks curiously at the cartridge in Steve's hand. "Is this some new manner of weapon?" 

"No," Steve says. He squints at the cartridge and then slides the game back into the machine, crossing his fingers and pushing the button to turn it on, and he is rewarded with a full color screen that reads _Super Mario Bros._ in big beigy letters. "It's a game, one of Phil's. He left 'em for me. You wanna play?" 

"Of course! It looks diverting," Thor says, reaching for a controller. "What is the object of this game? What foes do we slay?" 

"I guess we're about to find out," Steve tells him. He opens another bottle of pop and settles in next to Thor on the couch, then selects "2 Player Game," and off they go. 

It seems like every enemy they come across in this game reminds Thor of a tale of _glorious battle_ , but Steve's enjoying the stories. The one about the floating cloud monsters was pretty hilarious, at least until Thor got to the part of the story where he and his brother saved the day, not unlike the brothers in this silly video game, and then Thor had been kind of quiet for a while, so Steve took over as the storyteller. By that time they were to one of the underwater levels, so he told Thor about one of the first missions he'd been on with the Howling Commandos and the accidental swim they'd all had to take when Dum Dum tripped a booby trap and dunked them all in an underground lake. Bucky had made fun of him for the next-- well, the rest of his life, really. 

It's a bittersweet story for him, too, but if he had to lose the people he loves to anything, he'd much rather it be to death and time. He can't imagine what Thor feels, and he never wants to know firsthand. 

"Steven," Thor says, the fourth time they run out of a castle, "I do not understand this game. Why is the princess always in another castle, and why can we not just go to that castle to defeat this villainous lizard?" 

"I guess sometimes you just have to go through it," Steve sighs, and Thor reaches over to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder while they wait for the next level to start up.


	6. rules (Clint/Phil)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint breaks the rules to dance with Phil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by bendingwind, who wanted ~forbidden harem romance~ between these two.

The honor of being a paramour of the infamous Pepper Potts, CEO of the world’s most influential manufacturing company, is one that is afforded to a very select group of people, but once chosen, they are set for life. Every last one of them has a floor of the Tower to themselves and the car of their choosing, plus the gig comes with a retirement fund, a 401k, and better health insurance, Clint has been led to believe, than the fucking President’s. As far as being a kept man goes, Clint figures he do a lot worse.

The rules, once someone has been selected, are simple: do what Miss Potts requests more often than not, don’t fraternize with the other guests and/or staffers, and do not, under any circumstances, fall in love.

Clint didn’t figure on this being a problem. He’s met all the rest of Pepper’s people, and none of them are remotely his type, and as for the staff, he barely even sees them enough to notice.

And then Pepper gets a new PA, and things very quickly go to shit. Clint knows from the second Phil Coulson strolls in, all crisp white dress shirt and sexy efficiency, that he’s in trouble, but he buries it and ignores it and otherwise tries to drown it out with loud music or booze until the night that they all have to put on fucking suits and go to a fucking dinner party, and Coulson finds him on the balcony, hiding in the shadows, avoiding the other guests.

“Barton?” Coulson asks.

“Phil, hey,” Clint says.

“I wasn’t aware you knew my name,” he replies.

“Pretty sure I even know how you like your coffee,” Clint mumbles, and when Coulson raises an eyebrow, he continues, “black, unless it’s Saturday; Saturday’s two sugars and a splash of cream.”

“That’s…I’m sorry, I can’t decide if that’s impressive or slightly creepy,” Coulson says.

“Story of my life,” Clint says, and he sighs. “She want me back in there?”

“Not just yet,” Coulson tells him. “Miss Potts is aware that these parties are not exactly your favorite, ah, activity.”

Clint can’t help but leer a bit at that. “I’m a person with a very specific skill set,” he says, grinning. “Fancy parties don’t always call for the things I’m good at.”

He’d swear Coulson is blushing at that, but in this dim light it’s tough to say for sure.

“She did ask me to see how you felt about dancing,” Coulson says, and Clint grimaces.

“Can’t Nat do it?”

“Miss Romanov has other duties to attend to,” Coulson says.

“I guess all good things must come to an end, huh,” Clint sighs, and when Coulson looks at him curiously, he runs a hand through his hair and tries to explain. “I lied,” Clint admits. “On my application, or whatever you call all the shit I had fill out to get in here. The old PA, he was kind of a moron, he asked if I could dance, I said yes, they told me I was in, and that’s pretty much where you came in.”

Coulson snaps his fingers and holds out his hand. “Come here.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Clint says. “I can’t.”

“Anyone can dance, Barton,” Coulson insists, slipping his hand into Clint’s while Clint tries to ignore the little jolt he feels at the feeling of even this small bit of Coulson’s skin against his own.

Coulson maneuvers him into position, walking Clint through where to put his feet and when, and after a few minutes, he’s moving comfortably wherever Coulson takes him.

“I’ve got a confession,” Clint says. “The only person I want to take orders from tonight is you.”

If Coulson’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, he just hums a couple of bars of the song they’re dancing to and moves Clint gently around the floor of the balcony for a few more minutes.

“This is absolutely against the rules,” Coulson says, his lips against Clint’s ear.

“Rules are made to be broken,” Clint tells him, and the kiss Coulson gives him is so tender and perfect that he has absolutely no regrets.


	7. date night (Clint/Coulson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How a couple of married SHIELD agents spend their nights off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in [the Family Man universe](http://archiveofourown.org/series/19890), where Clint and Phil have adopted Ororo Munroe, but it's not necessary to read that to understand this. 
> 
> Prompted by shadowen, who wanted snark and kissing. There could be more of both of those things, but here we are.

"It is Friday night. Our daughter is at a slumber party. We have the house to ourselves. We are watching The Lion King on our couch, and we're not even making out," Clint says. "Is that an accurate, you know, summary of our evening?" 

"We're also quietly panicking because our daughter is at her first slumber party, and we're waiting for our phones to ring," Phil adds. He looks down at his phone, checking for missed calls, and then back at Clint. "Is that just me?" 

"No," Clint sighs, slumping against the couch cushions. "This is sad, Phil." 

"We don't get a lot of down time," Phil points out, muting the volume on the television, interrupting Jeremy Irons singing about being prepared. He shifts around so he's more or less facing Clint. "What do you want to do?" 

Clint gives him a slow smile. "I have an idea." 

+

"This was a terrible idea!" Phil shouts, ducking around the corner just in time to avoid a burst of gunfire. 

"Hey, hey, I just wanted to have a nice relaxing evening, possibly fucking around in a supply closet somewhere in this museum," Clint says, loading another clip into his gun. "How was I supposed to know that this place was getting knocked over tonight?" 

"Is it possible that you've been eavesdropping on FBI transmissions again?" Phil asks, raising an eyebrow, and Clint gives him a sly smile before firing a warning shot around the corner. 

"Anything's possible, boss," Clint says, winking, and Phil grabs him by the shirt collar and hauls him forward for a quick kiss before they have to get back to being good guys. 

"Okay," Phil says. "Let's wrap this up. I think I saw a supply closet one hall over." 

"Yes sir," Clint grins. "Anything you say, sir."


	8. Missing pieces (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SIf and Loki try to assemble IKEA furniture. This goes about as well as you might expect.

"I cannot help but think that it would not have come to this if we still ruled these people," Loki groused, staring grumpily at the piece of paper. "I have read runes that are more intelligible than this nonsense. What does this even mean?" 

"You're holding it upside down again," Sif said, glancing up at him from her place on the floor, surrounded by planks of fake wood and tiny pieces of metal. 

"I most certainly am not," he protested, but then she reached up, took the paper from him, and flipped it. "How could I be expected to know that?" 

"It doesn't matter, this is still beyond me. Can you not do this with magic?" she sighed. 

"You are admitting defeat?"

"This is hardly a battle," she said, pressing her lips together. "This is some kind of torturous puzzle." 

"We are of Asgard," he protested. "We are--" 

Sif held up her hand. "If you make another joke about being burdened with glorious plywood, I am leaving," she said, and he closed his mouth. "Nothing about this experience has been glorious." 

"Magic it is," he sighed, waving his hand at the pieces on the floor, which quickly assemble themselves into furniture. "Whatever shall we tell Stark about his little challenge?" 

"I thought we might lie," she proposed, standing, and he grinned over at her. "Or we can tell him we cheated. As long as we don't have to do this again." 

"I see no problem with that," he said, but then Sif began to frown. "What is it?" 

"You missed a piece," she said, pointing to two stray pieces near her feet. 

"How is that even _possible_?"


	9. expedit, defeated (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Sif face their greatest foe: the IKEA bookcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, this whole thing is for one-shots, but [that last one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/529018/chapters/968362) just wouldn't quit pestering me. Here's the rest of the story.

Hours later, Sif returned to the room where they had attempted to assemble the bookcase to find Loki standing perfectly still, staring angrily at the now once-more-disassembled furniture.

"What have you done?" she asked in dismay. 

"I have to know what went wrong," he replied. "It doesn't make any sense." 

"What makes no sense is why you are still bothering with it," she said, tugging on his arm. "Put it back together and come to bed."   
"In a moment," he said dismissively, reaching for two of the pieces, and she returned to the bedroom with a sigh. 

Another hour passed, and once more, Sif found Loki attempting to solve the riddle of the bookcase. 

"Is it not possible that there were extra pieces?" she asked, exasperated. 

"It says plainly that there are none," he says, kicking frustratedly at the box. "Yet every time I assemble it, _something remains unused_." 

She cleared her throat. "Perhaps the solution will come to you if leave it alone for a time." 

"And do what?" 

" _Come to bed_ ," she said, as suggestively as she could manage. 

" _Later_. I am a god, I will not be defeated by some mortal manufacturing mystery," he said, gesturing madly at the bookcase, and at that she decided she could take no more of this foolishness. She stalked over, picked up her sword, and sliced through the flimsy wood, leaving the bookcase to fall into two untidy piles. 

"Now it has not defeated me, either," she said. "Bed?"


	10. baby it's cold outside (sif/loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it's this cold outside, hot chocolate and snuggling is mandatory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From one of those "imagine your OTP" scenarios on Tumblr. Set after [ "second chance,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/529018/chapters/937198%20) because I fail at one-shots, apparently.

"Your chariot awaits," Loki says, when a cold but relieved Sif opens the door of his car. 

"I've never been on a plane that had to make an emergency landing before," Sif calls, chucking her suitcase into the backseat of the SUV. "I really appreciate this." 

"Don't mention it. I am ever at your service, my lady," Loki says theatrically, and she chuckles. "I'm glad I was still in the city. I was supposed to be on a plane myself." 

"Right, weren't you supposed to be off to Switzerland for the holidays?" she asks, as she climbs into the passenger seat and gratefully shuts the door on the bitter cold. 

"Mmm," he says, nodding. "I had a deposition that was, naturally, postponed, but not until after the last flight before the storm arrived. I am every bit as stranded as you are." 

"Sorry," she says, rubbing her hands together and then holding them up to the vents, enjoying the blast of heat against the chill of her skin. She looks around for a second, and then back over at him. "Okay, I have to ask: when did _you_ start driving a Hummer?" 

"It's Thor's," he explains, a wry twist to his lips. He gestures at the weather outside. "My car wouldn't have made it through all of this, and I wasn't about to leave you stranded. Besides, it isn't like he needed it. They've been in Bern for a week." 

"Tell him I said thank you," Sif says. 

"Tell him yourself," Loki replies, grinning. "You didn't think they'd let me miss an entire holiday without having to sit through at least one inebriated Skype session with my brother and the rest of the family, did you?" 

"Somehow I doubt they'll be thrilled that I'm with you," she remarks, and he sighs. 

"I cleared all of that up," he tells her. "Mother always knew it was my fault anyway." 

"If you say so," she says, and they're silent for most of the rest of the drive, Loki occasionally swearing at other drivers or the weather before finally they pull into a parking garage and he turns to her and says jokingly, "Welcome to my humble abode." 

"You're such a nerd," she says, but affectionately so, and he seems to take it in the spirit it was intended for once, because he only laughs as he opens his door and then says, "Speaking of: if you find that you're bored during your stay, I do have all of Doctor Who on DVD." 

"If I wake up to either the sound of drums or to find an angel statue in my room, I'm gone, snowpocalypse or not," she says warningly, and his grin is wicked, but he lets it go. 

His place is, predictably, huge and well-furnished, but she had hardly doubted for a second that the son of one of the world's richest men would live in anything but luxury, especially now that Loki mostly seems to have shaken off the emotional millstone he always wore around his neck in college, the paralyzing fear of insignificance that kept him constantly at odds with his father and led him to dramatically declare a period of self-imposed excommunication during junior year. She remembers him cutting up his credit cards and mailing the pieces home the day after she found him drunk and alone on the couch in Thor's frat house, watching _Happy Feet_ and lamenting that _this movie was a metaphor for his life_. 

He's come a long, long way, she thinks to herself, as he shows her around the apartment, which even includes a few pictures of his family here and there, like the one in the hallway on the way to the guest room, a black and white shot of Loki and Thor, covered in paint and laughing. She points to it, curious. 

"Didn't I take this?" 

"I think so," he says, leaning against the doorjamb. "Wasn't that the first annual campuswide paintball contest?" 

"Yes. You were going to shoot me in the back," she remembers, laughing. 

"I was going to shoot _Thor_ in the back," he corrects, holding up a finger. "I was going to shoot _you_ while you were looking at me." 

"That's better, is it," she says. 

"It seemed more sporting," he says, shrugging, and she laughs again and follows him down the hall, where he pushes open a door, gesturing to the room beyond. "Guest room. I hope it suits." 

"Yeah," she says, stepping inside and taking in the opulence of the decor and the furniture, the fireplace, the bathroom that from the look of things has an enormous tub, and the bed, which looks softer than is strictly legal. "I'm pretty sure this will be fine." 

"Right," he says, setting her suitcase by the door. He has a vaguely lost look on his face, an unusual expression for him generally, though not, she reflects, all that unexpected lately. Whatever he's been doing with his time since they split up all those years ago has certainly not been for nothing: that man would have had eighteen schemes for tonight, and she would have seriously considered sleeping in the airport for a few nights before she'd called him, but this time around things are different. 

It's been six months since he showed up and apologized and bought her coffee and they agreed to try this again, but slower this time, no falling into bed the first night, no instant relationship that ends in misery. But it's hardly the first night, and if they speed things up a little bit while they're stuck here, well, she won't mind.

Still, she can wait longer than the five minutes they've been here, surely, though the longer she stands here looking at him, the smaller the room seems to be, and the closer the distance between the two of them and the giant, comfortable bed. 

But just when she thinks she might just throw caution to the wind, her phone rings, and they both jump. 

"Looks like Dad got my message," she says, frowning apologetically. "I should take this." 

"Of course," he says, shaking himself a bit as though his thoughts had gone in the same direction, leaving her to her phone call. 

"Hey, Dad," she says, as soon as Loki closes the door. 

\+ 

She changes clothes before she goes to find him, but it's nothing special: this is for comfort and nothing else. If this goes somewhere, she can go there in sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

She finds him in the apartment's massive kitchen, somewhat relieved to note that he's also wearing comfortable clothing and not the suit and tie he had on when he picked her up. 

"I'm, ah, making hot cocoa," he says, looking almost embarrassed at the gesture. "Seemed like the kind of night for it." 

She tries not to laugh, but she can't help it. "Sorry, sorry, I'm just having trouble adjusting to you doing nice things for people without expecting something in return." 

"You are not alone in that sentiment," he replies, but he doesn't sound offended. "How is your father?" 

"Good," she says. "He's retired from the force, I don't know if I told you. I worry about him sometimes, I think he's sticking his nose into cold cases just to have something to do, and he's too old to be sneaking around in the dark." 

"Aren't we all," Loki sighs. "Here you go." 

Sif smiles and reaches for the mug he offers her. "Thank you," she says. She squints at a bottle on the counter. "Is that schnapps?" 

"Peppermint," he says, pushing the bottle over. "A bit cliche, I know." 

"Doesn't mean it's not good," she says, tipping some schnapps into her cup and following him out of the kitchen. When he reaches the door of what looks like a sunroom with only glass for walls, she pauses, frowning. "Won't it be freezing out there?" 

"It's heated," he says, shaking his head. "Come and see." 

She follows him, skeptical, but when he slides open the door she is greeted by a pleasant rush of warm air, and even the floor under her feet is warm. He sets his mug down on a low table near a long white couch and goes to turn on the lights while she curls up on the couch, careful not to spill the chocolate. When he seems satisfied with the lighting, he joins her, but stays a good distance away.

"Are you really going to sit all the way over there?" she asks. 

"Are you going to tell me you don't bite?" he returns, raising an eyebrow, and she winks. 

"We both know that's a lie," she laughs. 

"We did say slow," he reminds her, but his fingers are twitching on the back of the couch where his arm stretches out toward her. 

"We said slow," she says resolutely, shifting closer to him, "we didn't say _glacial_." 

"Indeed we didn't," he agrees, and they settle against each other, his arm around her shoulders and her hip pressed against his. They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching the snow falling outside as they finish their drinks. She is rid of the cold chill of the bad weather at last, warmed through by the chocolate and the alcohol and the nearness of him. 

"If you don't at least kiss me tonight, I don't even want to know you," she says finally. 

"I'll take that under advisement," he drawls. 

"See that you do," she replies, and when he does, much later, it is slow and warm and perfect.


	11. get well soon (Steve & Phil)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve brings Phil a get-well present.

The day they find out that Coulson's alive and well and recovering in an undisclosed location, Steve skips out on Tony's mandatory movie night for the first time since Tony instituted the event. He'll hear about it for the next eight years, but that's a sacrifice he's willing to make. Phil Coulson had tried to make a much bigger one, after all; this thing that he's doing, it's the very least he can do. 

He finds what he's looking for in a tiny shop in Brooklyn. He suspects that they're only keeping the place open because they recognize him, and usually he hates that sort of thing, but this is for a fellow soldier, so he pushes past the embarrassed awkwardness and pays for Phil's get-well present as quickly as he can, wishing the shop owners a nice evening as he hurries out the door. 

The undisclosed location isn't hard to find-- as he suspected, Natasha knows exactly where it is, and when he shows her what he's bought, she gives him the address and then a peck on the cheek. 

"I don't think they make them like you anymore," she says, laughing, and he blushes and stammers his thanks and heads off to find Phil. 

He has the cab drop him a block away, because he could use the walk to collect his thoughts and figure out what to say. "Welcome back," doesn't really seem to cover it, and "Sure glad you're not dead," is a little too wholesome, even for him. 

But when Phil answers the door, Steve realizes that sometimes it's not what you say, it's what you do, and without a word he folds Phil up into a big hug, careful not to pound his back or squeeze too hard. Steve's lost more than he can remember, and for the moment it's nice just to stand here with somebody who lived and enjoy a little human contact. 

"I, uh, got you a little get-well present," Steve says, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small wrapped box. 

"You didn't have to do that," Phil says, taking the box and staring at it for a second like he can't quite believe he's really awake. 

"I made you a promise," Steve says. "I tried my best to keep it." 

Phil squints up at him quizzically for a second, but then he turns his attention to unwrapping the box, which contains a complete set of vintage Captain America trading cards, each one freshly signed with a mostly legible _Steve Rogers_. 

"I think they're not in as great shape as yours were," Steve starts to say, but then Phil holds up his hand and Steve stops talking. 

"Thank you," Phil says earnestly. "I-- you-- I don't even know what to say. It isn't every day your childhood hero shows up at your door with a get-well present. Though I did have a dream about that when I was four and I had the chicken pox." He smiles nervously, clearly embarrassed. "You-- you're probably busy, but if you're not, I was about to order dinner." 

"I'd like that," Steve says, smiling as Phil waves him inside. "And you owe me a story about the chicken pox."


	12. courtship (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How to woo a warrior in three easy steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For gigi_originally on tumblr.

The first gift is a pair of daggers so sharp that they sing when she picks them up from the long low table by her bed, their blades slicing through the air with a perfect dangerous grace. It reminds her of something, but she cannot place it. The daggers themselves offer no clues: they are of Alfheim, but more than that she cannot discern, and Heimdall informs her that no man or woman has passed into that realm for weaponry in recent days. Regardless of their original owner, they serve her now, and they serve her well. She bests more foes than even Thor on their next journey to Niflheim, and all her compatriots admire the smooth vicious curve of her new blades. Even Loki is complimentary, a rare occurrence indeed. 

"A keen pair of blades for a clever warrior," he says, admiring the weight of the daggers briefly before passing them back to her. 

"They must be excellent indeed, to earn praise from someone whose tongue is often sharper than their blades," she replies, but mostly in good humor, and he inclines his head toward her, a hint of a smile on his lips.

"How well you know me, lady, for words have long been my weapon of choice," he says. 

"And yet our foes fell more easily before my blade than your words," she returns. 

The second gift is a book, an ancient treatise on warfare that is older, even, that she is, and pressed between its pages she finds flowers, dried and dull and lifeless at first until the warmth of her hands seems to give them new life, and their petals slowly unfurl in her waiting fingers, blossoming into a brilliant scarlet shot through with streaks of gold. 

She is well aware at this point that she is being subtly but certainly _courted_ , but by whom she knows not, though she strongly suspects, and the longer she stands here, this book in one hand and flowers in the other, daggers tucked securely against her sides, the more certain she is that she is correct. Still, her anonymous benefactor has yet to come forward, and she resolves not to put an end to this game before he sees fit to reveal himself. 

It is the third gift that convinces her to break this silence before he does.

"A horde of trolls?" she asks, when next she happens to find Loki alone. 

"At least I did not leave them in your chambers," he says. "I considered it." 

"A wise decision," she agrees, smiling over at him. 

"Courting a warrior is no easy task, I will have you know," he says. "Nevertheless, am I correct in assuming that because I still have my head, my modest efforts have not been in vain?" 

"Not as long as you ask me with words," she says, raising her eyebrows in challenge, and if all his questions were as good as the kiss he gives her, she would never hesitate to answer affirmatively.


	13. daggers (Sif/Loki)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the lovely anon on tumblr who asked about Sif and Loki's daggers from one of the deleted scenes in _Thor_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for: canon-typical violence & offscreen sex

It is on Svartalfheim that she acquires a pair of his daggers; they materialize in her hands when one of their foes strikes a blow that sends her sword flying across the small clearing. There is no time to be embarrassed by her mistake, nor is there time to be grateful that Loki alone of all their friends has noticed her error, a small mercy if only he will keep her secret. Sif does not usually favor shorter weapons, preferring the comforting heft and long range of her swords to the vicious short curve of these daggers, but their weight rests easy in her hands and they fly toward her enemies with a deadly grace, not at all unlike the rhythmic fighting style of their owner. 

When the battle is won and they are back in Asgard toasting their victory, Sif quietly seeks Loki out to return the daggers, but he waves his hand and shakes his head.

“Keep them,” he says, affecting the lazy casual tone he always favors when he wants to cover over some manner of sentiment. “They are hardly the only such weapons I have.”

“I would rather you take them and keep the secret of my mistake instead,” she grumbles, gripping the smooth handles of the daggers tightly her in fingers.

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Do you think I cannot keep your secret without them?” he asks, and she sighs.

“I think perhaps you will argue that I owe you regardless,” Sif replies, but they both know that the favors they exchange with one another are those of mutual pleasure, and when he slips into her bedchamber later that evening, the welcome she gives him is warm.

To her knowledge, he never reveals the miscalculation that led her to lose hold of her own weapons, and in silent gratitude, she carries the daggers with her each time they ride out with Thor and the others. Loki makes no comment about her use of them, though when she sends one sailing through the chilly Niflheim air to slice the throat of a hidden enemy, he does incline his head toward her in thanks.

The slight weight of Loki’s daggers, now her own, is a reassuring presence at her side for so many centuries that she hardly feels ready for battle without them. They prove themselves quite useful with their brutal blades that are perpetually sharpened by enchantment; they surprise more than one foe over the years, and they hold a place of honor amongst her collection of weapons even after their covert affair is long over, buried under too much misery to continue.

Thor’s failed coronation is the last time she wears them.

After Loki falls, she leaves them where they lie, glinting up at her with a cheerful malevolence each time she goes to collect her armor. More than once, she reaches out for them, intending to see them destroyed, but memory always stays her hand. What was once a symbol of friendship is now a reminder that trust is fragile and easily broken, and so she allows them to remain in their place next to her armor, a warning against the perils of an unguarded heart.


	14. press play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for hihiyas, prompt: college teacher AU. Sif/Loki. Canon-blending, professorial meet-cute, gratuitous silly movie references, etc.

It was a Year of Great Building at Aesir University: Pepper Potts, formerly fundraising chair of some national political action committee, had proven to be a truly fantastic addition to the campus capital campaign, netting the university billions in endowments from both the Stark and Wayne Foundations in the last two years alone. With all this new money floating around the old place, it was well past time for some renovations.

Sif couldn’t find a single fuck to give about any of it: no one was throwing money at _her_ department, because no one ever throws money at a history department, but the damn construction had forced a space-sharing situation with the law and business schools that she found completely untenable. While the law and business schools received new state-of-the-art computer equipment and a new wing a piece, the Carter School of Social Sciences got a couple of smartboards, a few departmental tablets, and the opportunity to “collaborate” with the law faculty, which had turned out to mean they had to house a few professors while the last of the new wing construction on the law school was completed. The arrangement had, at least, netted them a nice new coffee pot and refrigerator for the breakroom. That was _something_.

But while rubbing elbows with the pompous members of the legal faculty every so often at University events was bad enough, having them physically in the building was worse: they seemed to feel they had some kind of manifest destiny with regards to the territory of every floor, and slowly but surely boxes of their belongings had begun to accrue in every available space. The most recent victim was the building’s tiny copy room, which had recently become a repository for several large book deliveries, all addressed to one professor who was unfortunately out of the country and could not be bothered to make alternate arrangements for his possessions. For weeks now, the student workers had been forced to mount a climbing expedition to reach the copy machines; this morning Sif had enough and sacrificed hours of writing time to roam the building in search of space to house the boxes, aided in her quest by Romanov, the new Russian history adjunct, who had stolen the master key from Coulson’s office. Unfortunately, luck was not with them, and the boxes remained in the copy room.

Whoever the hell _Odinson, L._ was, he was going to get an earful when he finally showed up to collect his things.

"At least you’re in the social sciences," her friend Steve said later that afternoon, when she suggested meeting for coffee. Steve had been happy enough to agree: the art department, where he taught, was unfortunately located down the street from the new engineering building, and they’d been enduring the construction cacophony for months now. He was absently doodling on his napkin as he spoke, turning the blank tatted white paper into a chiaroscuro masterpiece. "We’ll see new funding when we turn out the next Picasso, and not a minute sooner, you know."

"Too bad you think Picasso’s a hack," she reminded him, grinning at him over the lip of her coffee cup.

"Hey, I never said _hack_ , exactly. I just prefer Braque, it’s… a purer expression of the style, that’s all,” Steve replied, with a lopsided grin of his own. “Anyway. Neither of us is in this for the money, or we’d be teaching something else.”

"True enough," she sighed. "But if that goddamn Odinson character doesn’t come collect his fucking boxes out of our copy room this week, I swear to god—"

"Odinson? Which one?"

"What do you mean?" she asked. 

"You really haven’t heard of the Odinson brothers?"

"Am I supposed to know these people?"

"They’re Frigga’s sons," Steve said, and Sif promptly did a spittake with her coffee.

"You’re kidding me," she said. Frigga was the university’s biggest benefactor and a very well-respected for both her philanthropic work and her own scholarly contributions, largely in educational pedagogy; Sif owned a few of her books. 

"I know what you’re thinking, but it’s more than just some good old-fashioned nepotism," Steve said. "They’re pretty accomplished."

"What do they teach?"

"One’s medicine, one’s law. Sam knows the doctor, really likes him."

"Well, I’ve got the lawyer’s books blocking my damn copy machine," Sif sighed. "I’m guessing there’s little hope of him coming to claim them?"

"He’s probably got an army of GA’s," Steve suggested.

"You’re not wrong," Sif said, and launched into an explanation.

Two weeks ago, in a fit of pique after being forced to go to Kinko’s and pay out of pocket for copies of her grant paperwork after being summarily evicted from her own copy room due to Odinson’s mounting pile of boxes, Sif had called the law school’s administrative office to inquire about graduate assistants for whoever the hell Odinson was. After a ten-minute hold, the nice but clearly overworked and underpaid assistant who took her call got back on the line to inform her that Professor Odinson had _three_ graduate assistants, and would Sif like her to email them and request that they contact her?

Cursing inwardly about privacy regulations, she had swallowed her irritation and given the assistant her email address, only to receive three polite but apologetic replies later that afternoon explaining that because the Professor was out of the country, there was really very little they could do about the situation.

"We’re sorry, Doctor Gunnevar, we’re just not certain which of his offices they should be moved to," someone named Grayson wrote, which only served to further infuriate her.

How dare this man take up space in her building when he had more than one office of his own?

Not to mention that the arrogant asshole had three GA’s of his own when most of her department had to make due with that number for everyone: Kamala, Kitty, and Armando were split between most of the junior history faculty, and while they were all very diligent student workers who did everything that was asked of them, they certainly couldn’t be expected to do everything that the _three_ GA’s that _Odinson comma L._ rated all by himself over at the law building. 

Having explained all of this to Steve, who had at least frowned with suitable sympathy throughout, Sif flopped back into her chair.

"To sum up, I hate him and he’s probably awful," Sif sighed.

"Well, if you decide to start a war…" Steve winked.

"Don’t worry, I won’t include the art department if I wish to win," she said, toasting him with the remainder of her coffee before draining the cup’s contents.

"Hey now, don’t count us out," Steve laughed. "We’ve got people who work with mixed media over there, we’re pretty scrappy. What are you gonna do, cite us to death?"

Sif raised an eyebrow. “Is that how it is?”

"Oh, that’s how it is," Steve grinned. "But hey, the coffee’s on me next time. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the boxes in the damn copy room. He’s gotta come back eventually."

"Thanks," she said. 

+

With only a month left before the start of the fall semester, Sif soon decided that it was high time to take matters into her own hands. Armed with a handtruck and her own strength, she made her way over to the law building with half of Odinson’s books, all that would actually fit on the cart.

According to the interactive touchscreen television in the lobby area of the law building, Loki Odinson’s suite of offices— “Asshole,” Sif muttered when she read the three numbers by his name— was located on the third floor. She tapped her foot angrily for the duration of the brief elevator ride— how nice, she thought, to have an elevator that didn’t groan and creak like it was being operated by a crew of aging skeletons— before the doors opened and she shoved the cart out onto beautiful old hardwood flooring. On the wall near the elevator, arrows with numberplates pointed her in the appropriate direction, and she wrestled the cart around corner after corner in the labyrinthine corridors of the third floor before she finally reached her destination.

Fortune favors the brave, she thought, for the door to one of the three offices was ajar, and she shoved it fully open with her shoulder before hauling the handtruck inside. As the door swung wide, it revealed a beautifully furnished office full of natural light from domed windows.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake," Sif swore, taking a moment to look around at the expensive plush rug underneath her feet, the first editions of books piled high on old shelves, and the heavy desk adorned with a very new, very large iMac. She was thinking wearily of her own seven-year old Dell desktop when someone behind her coughed, pulling her back to the present.

Startled, she turned to find a tall, slim man staring at her and the handtruck of boxes. She took in his carefully pressed button-down shirt, khaki trousers, and the inevitable boat shoes and had to fight not to roll her eyes. _Law students._ They were all so fucking similar that she would swear they must just hatch them all from the same damn mold so they could just admit new little clones each year.

The clone in front of her crosses his arms over his chest, the movement revealing lean but toned muscle underneath the fabric of his shirt where it stretched slightly to accommodate his arms. When he stepped forward, his dark hair waved out in loose curls near his temples, the only sign that he might be a moderately interesting human being when away from the law school, and Sif decided that this one, at least, was handsome enough for a clone, anyway. Still, a student was a student, and she cleared her throat and summoned her best classroom management voice.

"Yes?" she asked, as though she were not the one trespassing.

"Excuse me for _interrupting_ ,” he said, eyebrows raised, “but deliveries typically need to go through the administrative offices downstairs before they’re sent up, and I don’t recall receiving a notice for this one. What company are you with?”

“ _This_ one,” she said, completely exasperated. “I teach here. In the history department. These boxes have been in our way for three solid months, as you know, because I’ve emailed about them. So I don’t know which one of Odinson’s little army of GA’s you are, but whether you’re Summers, Grayson, or Grey, you can tell your boss that he can either find room for these things in one of his _several_ offices, or it’s war, and there’s a military historian here who will make Thermopylae look like a _very_ small skirmish.”

"I see," he said.

"There’s another five boxes in my building," she continued, as he closed the short distance between them and pulled out a pair of glasses to better peer at the labels on the boxes. The glasses were, predictably, black and thick-rimmed, but she thought she spied little green flecks here and there on the earpieces, another quiet hint of some sort of humanity. She cleared her throat. "If you decide that you feel like doing any work today at all."

"I see," he repeated, somehow reaching another level of condescending smarm in only two words. Her hatred multiplied exponentially.

"Look here," she began to say, but then a loud jangling of keys came from outside the door, preceding a young woman with fiery red hair and a dress to match.

"Oh! Good morning! We, uh, didn’t expect you back until next week," she said, still holding her key as though she expected to fit it into a door. "How was your trip, Professor?"

Professor! The title burned in Sif’s ears. _This_ was the person whose possessions had been the bane of her department’s existence for three months? _This_ person, with his button-down shirt and his absurd glasses and his vaguely unkempt hair? He was so young! She looked him over again, lingering possibly longer than necessary on his crossed arms in that shirt and the line of his collarbone peeking out under his neck. They couldn’t be terribly far apart in age, and yet this arrogant Sperry-wearing asshole merited _three_ offices with _three_ GA’s, while she would still fighting with the department to secure tenure for at least another two years. 

"Productive," he replied curtly. "Have you finished with the banking research I asked for?"

"Yes, sir," the young woman said quickly, rummaging in her bag briefly before producing a thin file folder and a flash drive. "Here’s the memo you wanted, along with scanned files from the database— I organized everything on the flash drive by year, beginning with 1785."

As Odinson nodded and leafed swiftly through the pages in the file folder, Sif considered once again how nice it must be to have so many students doing your bidding. She fought not to grind her teeth as he tugged off his glasses and tucked them into a trouser pocket.

"Good. Thank you, Ms. Grey, that will be all for now," he said, waving her out and shutting the file with a snap. "Attempt to enjoy what’s left of your summer, I’ll be emailing you and the others next week."

"Thank you, Professor," she said, and then frowned as she noticed Sif and the boxes. Clearly concerned that her boss would think she had somehow authorized this, she looked from Sif to Odinson and back before asking, "Are you here from the history department? I thought Alex or Richard emailed you about those."

"Yes, they said to leave them," Sif said, gripping the handle of the cart. She shrugged. "I was disinclined to acquiesce to their request."

She managed not to groan at her inadvertent quotation, though she did make a mental note not to fall asleep with more movie marathons on. Unexpectedly, beside her, Odinson snickered quietly behind his hand. 

"Means no," he murmured, in his student’s direction.

Ms. Grey, whose first name Sif could not now presently recall, raised her eyebrows. “I know.”

"I’ll deal with this, thank you," Odinson told her, waving her out. 

"Works for me," Grey muttered. "Good afternoon, Professor."

With one last inquisitive look at her boss and Sif, she left, her red hair trailing after her.

"So. You’re Odinson, huh," Sif said, tapping her foot next to one of the wheels of the handtruck.

"Indeed. How embarrassing for you," he drawled, and she resisted the urge to tip the cart and dump all his books all over the floor and all over his stupid boat shoes. She settled instead for walking out without the cart entirely.

"Not really. Come and collect your books as soon as possible," she said, on her way out the door. "Otherwise, I’m donating them to the campus library."

On the way back to her office, she emailed Steve.

_Correction, re: Odinson: I **do** hate him and he is **definitely** awful._

Thinking again of leanly muscled forearms and exposed collarbones, she quickly added, _Also unfortunately very attractive_ , before immediately deleting it, adding instead _And please, remind me not to fall asleep watching movies while writing syllabi again._ , then hitting _send_.

A few minutes later, her phone pinged with a reply.

_Well, if you want to papier-mâché something obscene onto those boxes of books, I know a guy. For the citations, you’re on your own._

_And hey, Sam says come over for dinner, it’s poker night. Bring money. And beer._

_Also bring the story that inspired that last sentence. This I’ve gotta hear._

—SR

Sif smiled and agreed to be there at seven. Steve might take all of her money, but at least he’d be a mostly sympathetic ear.

+

The next morning, having been relieved of a good deal of money by Steve and Sam the night before, she stopped by the copy room on her way to her office to find that though her wallet was lighter, she had reason to rejoice: the books had finally gone. With a grim, satisfied smile, she headed to her office, copies in hand at long last. But when she opened her door, she almost dropped her papers in shock: an unexpected addition to her office now rested on atop her filing cabinet. Once, an aging Magnavox stereo sat there, an ancient machine that she had picked up at a garage sale as a broke grad student six years ago. In its place now sat an absurdly expensive Bang & Olufsen sound system with a bright green Post-It affixed to the controls. She lifted the note and peered at the handwriting, deciphering it readily enough after years of decoding poor student penmanship.

 _Press play_ , read someone’s scrawling script.

Curious, she did. A world of sound filled the office immediately, and she fumbled for the controls, realizing as she reconfigured the music to a more respectable volume that she was hearing the unmistakable sounds of Hans Zimmer’s _Pirates of the Caribbean_ soundtrack.

"Of all the absurd—" she began, then promptly crumpled the note in her hand.

The walk to the law building had never seemed quite so short, and she was glad that there were no students to stare at her as she stormed through the halls towards Odinson’s office.

"I have to say," she said, as she deposited the stereo unceremoniously on his desk, "this is the probably most expensive way anyone has ever attempted to insult me."

He looked up at her over the rims of his ridiculous glasses. “Insult you?”

"I am keenly aware that you people soak up all the University’s available funding for your own nefarious purposes, I didn’t need it thrown in my face any more than it already is," she grumbled.

"Nefarious? This is a _law_ school,” he murmured.

"Exactly," she sniped. "And you know what, my choice of films is really just— how the hell did you know what I was quoting if you didn’t— oh, forget it. Enjoy your new stereo."

"All right, look, perhaps it was a bit of a _fuck you_ ,” he admitted, just as she reached the door. Surprised, she turned to face him again. “I admit it. But it was also an attempt to— you’re not the only one who uses _Pirates of the Caribbean_ marathons to motivate themselves to grade piles of insipid papers, is all I’m trying to say, here.”

"That’s all?" she said, and waited.

"And…I’m sorry?" he tried, and she shook her head at the paltry apology. "I was jet lagged."

"Hmph." He was going to have to do better than that, that delightfully visible collarbone— again!— be damned.

"Family emergency," he suggested.

"Uh huh."

"I’m extremely inconsiderate," he said, flattening his hands on his desk.

"Getting that," she said, nodding slowly.

"I’m a _lawyer_ ,” he protested at last, and she fully intended to scowl, but a smile worked its way across her face regardless.

"I see," she said, in substantially the same tone as he had used the last time they spoke. "How embarrassing for you."

"It does come with a nice office," he said, shrugging, and she shook her head, amused despite herself. "For what it’s worth, I didn’t even know the books were over there, I’ve been in Stuttgart for three months."

"And?"

"And I’m _sorry_ , Doctor Gunnevar,” he said. It sounded moderately more sincere than his other attempts, anyway.

"How did you know my name to find my office, by the way? I don’t remember mentioning it the other day." 

"You told me you were a military historian," he shrugged. "I guessed that the office with the swords above the door might be yours."

"Okay, you got me there," she laughed.

"You should keep this," he said, nudging the box back across his desk. "As I said, you’re not the only person who finds music motivational."

Sif eyed the stereo for a moment, looking between the gift and the giver.

"I’ll think about it," she said at last. "And I was researching, not grading, with the movie. You should give _Pacific Rim_ a try. It’s good for the more… uninspiring papers.”

"Is it," he said, taking off his glasses. "I haven’t seen that."

"It’s on Netflix," she offered.

"Perhaps you’d like to introduce me sometime," he suggested, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head. Her traitorous eyes were drawn to his damn arms again for a moment before she realized what he had said.

"Wait a minute. Are you asking me out?"

"Yes," he said, shrugging, "or _in_ , as the case may be.”

She leaned against the door jamb, crossing her arms, unable to chase the smile from her face entirely. “Those books were in my way for three months, you know.”

"The movie will be accompanied by a very nice dinner, I assure you."

"It had better be," she said.

+

A semester later, she decided that the stereo really made a lovely addition to her office. Indeed, she had to admit, after the day Loki introduced her to _The Big Lebowski_ , the stereo really tied the room together.


	15. situation normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sif/Loki. 
> 
> For teslatricity, who requested "met on an online dating site" coffee date. This is...sort of that, but mostly Loki totally not at all freaking out in Thor's general direction.

"For the last time, Thor, no, I don’t want your advice," Loki said, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other held his mobile to his ear. In front of his car, a line of traffic sat stalled, and he took his fingers from his nose to tap them against the steering wheel. "I have, in actual fact, been on a date before. In recent memory, even."

"I know that," Thor’s voice rumbled through the phone. "But this is the online thing. It’s different."

"If you had a success rate here, you know, I might be more inclined to listen to you," Loki pointed out, fingers now dancing over his tie, feeling the knot to make sure it was still as perfect as it had been two minutes before. It was.

Should he have worn the tie? It’s coffee, it’s just coffee, he’d had the tie on for work, was it too much?

It was too much. Or was it?

She would be coming from work as well, obviously, he didn’t want to show up and make _her_ feel overdressed, would he?

For god’s sake, it was a tie. Get it together, man.

Not that he had anything at all to get together, because everything was perfectly fine. Situation normal. He fumbled with the tie knot again.

Briefly, he considered unknotting it, just to have something to do other than listen to Thor rambling on and on in his ear about love and romance and…whatever the hell Thor was currently on about, he’d basically stopped listening, not that the familiar hum and cadence of Thor’s voice was at all comforting, nor, indeed, did he particularly need to be comforted. Obviously.

It wasn’t that he was _nervous_ , exactly. It wasn’t as though he’d called Thor for _advice_. At least, not about this. It was perfectly reasonable to use the traffic jam as an excuse to call Thor about a gift for their mother. For her birthday. Which was five months away.

Nothing wrong with having a plan in advance. Nothing at all.

"—the point is, while I know Jane and I didn’t meet on the internet—" Thor was saying when Loki began listening again.

"No, you didn’t, so it’s not the same at all and I don’t really think you know what you’re on about," Loki interjected, despite the fact that he had called Thor and had, possibly, maybe, moments before, _ever so casually mentioned_ that he was on his way to meet this woman that he’d been conversing with for two months now.

Two months was plenty of time to develop a significant enough rapport with someone such as to inspire some kind…mild concern about meeting that person. Surely.

Not nerves, though.

At all.

Really.

Thor sighed. “Fine, fine. So, how do you want to do it? Should we surprise her, or what?”

"What the hell are you talking about, Thor? It’s a first date, for god’s sake, and I certainly didn’t call to invite you to— oh for fuck’s sake, stop laughing," Loki snapped, when he realized that Thor had, of course, been referencing his originally stated purpose for this phone call and not the reason for, as Thor had so very wrongly put it, his _mad fret_ over this impending date situation.

"I _knew_ you called me because you were nervous,” Thor crowed. “I knew it. You don’t care what we give Mother for her birthday, it’s five months away.”

"I care!" he objected.

"Of course," Thor laughed. "Speaking of caring, you know, it’s fine to care about this, too."

"It’s a first date," he repeated, for Thor’s benefit and not his own, at all, in any way whatsoever.

It was coffee, that was all. Just coffee. With another human being. Something he’d done hundreds if not thousands of times before, albeit not with someone for whom he had any kind of romantic interest, though of course there had been many of those.

But this…

 _If_ he were to be nervous, even slightly, it would be completely understandable, given, first of all, the length of time it had been since he had deigned to try and _romance_ someone, and second of all, how, well, _captivating_ he happened to find this particular person.

That was not a word he often chose to describe another human being. In point of fact, it might never have actually happened before.

But Sif…two months of emails and he hadn’t been bored once. She was delightful. She was delightful, and intelligent, and determined, and she had _for some reason_ agreed to meet him for coffee and possibly dinner, and anyone in their right mind would be nervous, really.

Not, of course, that _he_ was. Perish the thought.

Literally, the thought of being filled with dread at the prospect of meeting a lovely captivating woman for coffee, that thought, well, that thought could die a fiery death any minute now.

"Earth to Loki," Thor was calling.

"What?" he said, startled out of reverie.

"I said: you can’t care about a first date?"

"Obviously I can," Loki groused. "I’m not very happy about it, mind."

"Your secret dies with me," Thor promised. "Look, just…I know it’s a cliche, but…be yourself. After all those emails, she wouldn’t have agreed to meet you for coffee if she didn’t like you. And who knows, you may have actually happened upon the one person in the cosmos who can put up with you—"

"Well if it happened for _you_ , you overly muscled box of Weetabix, it could happen to anyone—”

Thor’s laughter was so loud that it made his ears ring, and he pulled the phone away from his ear to frown at it. “See, that should give you some hope, little brother.”

"I dislike you extremely," Loki informed him, meaning none of it; despite himself, he did actually feel _somewhat_ better, at least until the traffic finally began to inch along again, and it occurred to him that he was only five minutes or so away from his destination. “I have to go now,” he informed his brother.

"Okay. Well, text me tomorrow and tell me how it goes, yeah?"

Loki frowned as the traffic started to move in an orderly stream once more. “Why tomorrow?”

"In case it goes well, obviously," Thor said. "Don’t be nervous. But if you are, it’s okay."

"Fuck you very much, Thor," Loki chimed into the phone.

"I love you too, little brother," Thor chimed back, and Loki rolled his eyes and hung up, just as he reached the coffee shop where he and Sif had agreed to meet.

He took one last look at himself in the rearview, deciding with a final mental _oh for fuck’s sake_ that the tie could stay, and then slipped out of the car and walked _without any trepidation_ whatsoever into the building.

The bell over the door jingled happily at him when he walked in; he barely managed not to jump into the air at the noise. As the door closed, he glanced quickly around, checking his watch once even though he knew perfectly well what time it was. He’d seen her picture, of course, but he didn’t see Sif anywhere. He wasn’t late, he’d made sure to arrive early despite the horrible traffic. It occurred to him that she might have decided that she did not actually want to meet him, which certainly did not upset him at all.

He was very preoccupied with not caring that he might have been stood up when someone tapped his shoulder. He turned to find, possibly, the most intensely beautiful woman he’d ever seen staring at him.

 _Oh_.

Unbelievably, inexplicably, she _smiled_ , and penchant for bending the truth or no, he would have truthfully professed before any court in the world that the universe was infinitely brighter.

"Loki?" she said, offering him her hand, and when he took it, smiling around her name as he did, he felt that there really wasn’t anything at all to be nervous about.

Thor was such an idiot. Everything was going to be _fine_.


End file.
